Pubdate: Thu, 25 Oct 2007
Source: Georgia Straight, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2007 The Georgia Straight
Contact:  http://www.straight.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1084
Author: Alex Roslin
Cited: Iboga Therapy House http://www.ibogatherapyhouse.net
Cited: Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies http://www.maps.org
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/ibogaine
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/addiction

THE QUEST FOR THE ULTIMATE CURE FOR ADDICTION

Could the root of an African shrub hold the key to getting millions 
of addicts off heroin, coke, and crack - oh, yeah, and cure 
alcoholism in its spare time? Can a single dose of an extract from 
the mysterious shrub's root bark be worth years on a therapist's couch?

Some of the answers may soon be found in a three-bedroom house on the 
Sunshine Coast. Tucked away there on a hill, with a stunning view of 
the ocean and surrounded by tall trees, is the Iboga Therapy House.

Forty years after globetrotting backpackers introduced a substance 
called ibogaine into the U.S. drug culture, the extract from western 
Africa's Tabernanthe iboga shrub has become an underground rage among 
drug-addled Hollywood celebs willing to plunk down between $3,500 and 
$10,000 for ibogaine treatment at any one of about a dozen 
unregulated clinics worldwide, including the one in B.C.

Because ibogaine is illegal in the U.S. -  one of just three 
countries to ban the substance, along with Belgium and Switzerland  - 
clients have to travel to clinics in countries such as Canada, 
Mexico, Costa Rica, and Slovenia for an "ibogaine experience".

Advocates liken the miracle drug - which can unleash a 
reality-shattering trip so powerful it has been described as "dying 
and going to hell 1,000 times" - to the Holy Grail of addiction 
cures, comparable in importance to the discovery of penicillin. 
Although ibogaine's alleged ability to quickly cure opiate addiction 
without withdrawal symptoms was discovered relatively recently, the 
substance has long been used in Gabon by hunters to stay alert and, 
in larger doses, in week-long sacred ceremonies in the Bwiti religion.

Yet despite the extraordinary claims about ibogaine's powers, a B.C. 
study launched last February is the first time the drug's therapeutic 
benefits for opiate addiction are being measured systematically in a 
public investigation. (Other clinics haven't released data.)

Preliminary results from the Sunshine Coast clinic have justified 
much of the hype. "I've witnessed people's lives being turned 
around," said Leah Martin, one of the study leaders. Of 20 pre-study 
clients who took ibogaine at the facility in 2004, 13 were found to 
be abstaining when evaluated later, after an average interval of six 
months. The abstainers included six out of seven cocaine or crack 
addicts, three of eight opiate addicts and four of five people with 
other addictions, including to meth and multiple substances.

With an overall abstinence rate of 65 percent, ibogaine does way 
better than the 10-percent average of conventional drug-treatment 
programs, Martin said. What's more, the clients at the B.C. facility 
are usually the hardest cases.

"People who contact the Iboga Therapy House have already done every 
type of program in their city and are scouring the Internet [for 
help]. They've been in detox multiple times and are highly resistant 
to other therapy. They say, 'This is my last hope,'" she said.

Ibogaine works in two ways. It eliminates cravings for heroin and 
other drugs in many people, but it also often works at a deeper 
level, getting them to revisit life experiences good and bad and 
helping many find ways to heal and ensure cravings don't come back. 
Scientists say it's like hitting a reset button for your brain. 
Traces of the drug remain in the body for up to six months, 
continuing to ward off addictive urges in unknown ways. "It truly is 
its own category [of drug]," Martin said. "Right after, it's common 
for people to say, 'Whoa, what was that?' But a month later, people 
might wake up and remember something and be able to move forward."

Ibogaine appears to work on "every neurotransmitter system we know 
about", Kenneth Alper, a psychiatry professor at New York University 
School of Medicine, told the Journal of the American Medical 
Association in a 2002 story on ibogaine. Alper, who is also a 
co-investigator in the B.C. study, has called the use of ibogaine 
"one of the biggest paradigm shifts regarding treatment for addiction 
in the span of my career".

In a testimonial on the Iboga Therapy House's Web site, one client 
says of the trip: "I pretty much died to my old self. I yelled, I 
kicked, I screamed (inside myself) but this new knowledge is too 
powerful to ignore." Says another: "I believe Iboga brings you into 
and through the land of the dead, to the land of the Gods."

The Georgia Straight connected with Martin early one morning near the 
end of her 8 p.m.-to-8 a.m. shift as a program worker at a Downtown 
Eastside residential detox centre run by the Portland Hotel Community 
Services Society. She spoke about her own ibogaine trip: "I felt as a 
facilitator I should know what it was like, to be able to relate."

An ibogaine experience usually lasts 24 to 36 hours, most of which 
is, typically, spent on your back because of impaired muscle 
coordination and perception. The first four hours usually involve 
plenty of vomiting, coupled with hallucinations and strange physical 
sensations. This isn't a drug for clubland.

Next is eight hours of what Martin called the "cognitive phase: the 
beginning stages of insights. You're remembering things or events. It 
tells a very interesting story of yourself and your life."

The intense visions are dreamlike, Martin said, but "if you find 
yourself in a vision you don't like, you can just open your eyes. 
There is a lot of randomness along with insights. It truly was a 
reflection of my mind and the things I obsess about. I laughed at 
myself a lot, realizing how ridiculous people can be."

This is the phase that can give people with addictions deep new 
insights into their troubles. "If you had trauma, people can relive 
that. After they're traumatized, sometimes they shut themselves off 
from the pain, and that's why they adopt certain habits. But to be 
able to see it in a healing way [with ibogaine] can be beneficial."

Then comes another 12 to 24 hours of "residual stimulation" as the 
person keeps dreaming but slowly comes down, often falling asleep.

Advocates say the drug isn't addictive itself partly because the trip 
is so hellacious. "It is not a recreational drug," said Rick Doblin, 
president of the California-based Multidisciplinary Association of 
Psychedelic Studies, which is helping to fund the Iboga Therapy House 
study. Doblin is also the principal investigator.

The ibogaine work is just one of MAPS's stable of groundbreaking 
research projects. The group is also funding the first-ever studies 
of therapy involving ecstasy, LSD, and magic mushrooms to deal with 
mental-health issues like posttraumatic stress, end-of-life anxiety, 
and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The U.S. studies all have an 
official okay from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and even of 
the drug warriors at the Drug Enforcement Agency, and are attracting 
interest from the U.S. military for treating PTSD among Iraq vets.

Early results show ecstasy is not only safe for therapeutic purposes, 
but it can also help people who don't respond to conventional therapy 
or treatment with the pharmaceutical drugs normally given for 
posttraumatic stress: Zoloft and Paxil. Doblin described the ecstasy 
results as "dramatic" far better than those from the standard treatments.

The work has still met ferocious resistance from the DEA, however. 
MAPS is battling the agency in court to get permission for scientists 
to grow marijuana in order to study its use for pain relief, control 
of nausea, and other medical purposes. Last February, a judge ruled 
in MAPS's favour, but the DEA has filed a series of objections, 
citing security concerns and likening Doblin to Colombian drug lord 
Pablo Escobar.

Speaking over the phone from his home in Boston, Doblin said he owes 
much of his doggedness and success to his own ibogaine trip in 1985, 
a year before he founded MAPS. "I feel it's been a major contributor 
to what I've been able to accomplish," he said, describing the 
experience as "lasting, powerful and very positive, although at the 
time it was horrendous".

Back then, already active in drug-policy reform, he said he suffered 
from a neurosis common to many activists "a certain arrogance, that 
we know the better world". An underground therapist suggested 
ibogaine could help him grow personally and become a more effective activist.

Doblin took it one morning at the oceanfront house of a therapist, 
who stayed at his side. He lay in bed with his eyes closed all day, 
vomiting constantly, coughing and feeling like he was choking. The 
barf brought out complex emotions: "a line between self-criticism, 
self-perception, and self-hatred". He started to blame his intense 
nausea on his inability to just chill out and unwind. "I thought this 
was all my doing that I couldn't relax. If only I was better, I could 
be a better tripper," he said. Then came realization: here was a 
metaphor for his struggles with his arrogance. "I was crucified on 
the cross of my own self-perfectionism," he said, laughing.

Twelve hours later, the stars came out, his guts relaxed, the 
upchucking stopped and everything got good. "I had one of the most 
blissful nights of my life. It felt like transcendence through 
exhaustion," he said. "I'm forever grateful for that experience. I 
think about it often."

The experience helped Doblin work out the arrogance thing; it also 
enabled him to develop the confidence to strike out and found MAPS. 
Yet he doesn't believe it's the easy wonder drug some suggest, and he 
supported the B.C. study partly because of the underground myths 
about ibogaine. "We've been deluded for a long time with the 
miracle-cure approach," he said.

One problem is many ibogaine clinics that offer the expensive 
treatment are happy to let potential clients believe it will solve 
all their problems, Doblin said. The clinics have little incentive to 
follow-up with clients or study the treatment's effectiveness, which, 
he said, is widely overestimated.

First off, he said ibogaine isn't for everyone. It requires one to be 
"open to the self-reflection that ibogaine permits. It takes a 
certain courage to go through an ibogaine experience." Even for these 
folks, he said, the trip has to be supported by aftercare and, 
possibly, a second dose.

There may also be safety concerns. About a dozen deaths have occurred 
during the 3,600 recorded ibogaine treatments that have taken place 
outside Africa since 1990. Advocates say pharmaceutical drugs also 
cause adverse reactions. Also, coroner reports in most of the cases 
placed the blame not on ibogaine, but on conditions like heart or 
liver disease and, in one case, a man choking on his vomit while 
eating a sandwich after the session had ended.

Just the same, the Iboga Therapy House screens potential clients for 
several medical conditions like ulcers, liver problems, blood clots, 
and heart trouble. Patients start with a small test dose and are 
observed for an hour for adverse reactions before the rest of the 
gram-sized full dose is given.

Gone, however, are the halcyon days when the clinic used to offer 
free ibogaine. In 2005, its founder, Vancouver pot entrepreneur Marc 
Emery, ran out of cash to fund the facility, so it had to close. Last 
February, the clinic reopened with money from MAPS. It now hopes to 
become self-sustaining by charging $4,700 for a five- to seven-day 
treatment session for dependence on heroin, methadone, and other 
opiates, cocaine, crack, or alcohol. (Shorter, cheaper sessions are 
also offered for spiritual or strictly therapeutic trips.)

Aside from the ibogaine, which the clinic buys for $700 a dose from a 
distributor in Spain, the sessions include therapy, massage, 
acupuncture, mild yoga, and elements of the traditional Bwiti 
ceremony to set the mood for the ibogaine session. Only one client or 
couple stays at the house at any time, and staff are on hand around 
the clock to monitor them.

Doblin said the B.C. ibogaine clinic is inexpensive when compared to 
hospital programs. Besides that, the cost doesn't seem high compared 
to addiction's drain on people and society. Almost 10 percent of the 
B.C. government's budget is spent on substance abuse and problem 
gambling, according to a 2005 drug-policy report by the City of 
Vancouver. That report recommended alternative treatments for drug 
dependency, including the therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs like 
peyote and ayahuasca.

Although ibogaine wasn't mentioned specifically, Zarina Mulla, a city 
drug-policy planner and report coauthor, spoke enthusiastically about 
it in a phone interview from her office.

"It helps users analyze some of the issues behind the drug abuse. 
Perhaps this is the most important thing because you can relapse and 
go back to the drug," she commented.

Mulla said alternative approaches are vital at a time when the Harper 
government has announced a new Canadian drug policy modelled on the 
U.S. police-and-prisons approach, which she called "a 
failure...There's such a large amount of money for enforcement [in 
the Harper policy] and none for harm reduction and only a little for 
prevention and treatment."

Leah Martin, for her part, said she's not holding out hope for any 
federal funds for the ibogaine clinic. It did apply once, but was 
rejected. "They were looking for teens that do [drug-education] 
tables at raves. We were a bit too obscure for them. People generally 
don't know about [ibogaine]."

And in the current climate, that's not all bad. "We're lucky ibogaine 
is unscheduled [not banned] in Canada. We play our cards so we kind 
of stay off the radar." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake